THE true scale of the latest joke on Kim Jong-un is only now becoming apparent, as it appears the online forum 4chan did not just rig the top spot in Time's person of the year online poll, it successfully manipulated the top 14 places to create an elaborate poor-taste gag at the expense of the baby-faced North Korean dictator.

The day after voting closed in Time's poll on December 12, the magazine's website ran a knowing story in which it riffed that ''Kim Jong-un is having a good year'' after being ranked first ''in Time's completely unscientific person of the year reader poll''.

While Time was fully aware the vote had been rigged by hackers, the Korean Central News Agency was not and on Thursday it reported the result as fact, taking it to mean Mr Kim had been awarded Time's person of the year award (he wasn't; Barack Obama got that honour).

It was the second time in less than a month that North Korea's supreme leader was the victim of a spoof, after the website of China's People's Daily newspaper took at face value a parody from satirical website The Onion in which Mr Kim was named sexiest man alive.

The Chinese coverage was complete with a photo gallery of the heroic one on horseback, greeting the troops and, ironically, on the cover of Time.

While that was a simple but hilarious misunderstanding, the latest gag involved manipulation by 4Chan on a massive scale.

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According to website knowyourmeme.com, the campaign to raise Mr Kim to the top spot was hatched on November 26.

By December 3, a new goal had been added: to rig the poll to produce a barbed acrostic.

The aim was to organise the result so the first letters of the top 14 spelt out the phrase ''KJU gas chambers'', an oblique reference to allegations of a gas chamber at Kwan-li-so Camp 22 at Hoeryong.

And that is exactly what happened, although this is one result the Korean Central News Agency is unlikely to report.